


je suis une femme sauvage (et je brûle avec votre honte)

by breathless_bisous



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Always pining, F/F, Languages, Pining, but a happy ending!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3463664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathless_bisous/pseuds/breathless_bisous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>her family taught her to speak, then cut out her tongue.  millie spent the next twenty years trying to learn enough words to curse them properly.</p><p>title translates to "i am a wild woman (and i burn with your shame)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	je suis une femme sauvage (et je brûle avec votre honte)

when she brings home a mediocre mark in french (she skipped studying to go on a terrible date with the boy next to her in maths) her mother signs her up for latin and refuses to speak to her in anything other than her own rusty french.

 

millie learns french in school, listens to her teacher run through verbs with ease and swears to herself that she'll learn to speak like that too.

 

she learns to read the papers her mother would never let her bring in the house in english. ( _oh, maman, je voudrais étudier, c'est jusque des nouvelles_ )

 

she learns how to say the words that make girls smile at her under their lashes, run their fingers along the side of her skin, feeling like fireworks ( _oh, ma chèrie, je t'aime, je t'adore, je t'embrasse, ici et ici, à la bouche et entre votre cuisses_ )

 

one day she tells her father _(je voudrait voir le monde_ ) and without looking up from his work he corrects ( _tu verras le monde, ma petite_ )

 

latin is harder.  there is too much order, too much structure, too much for a girl who skinned her knees when she was three, trying to run before she could walk.  latin is harder but millie runs the endings through her mind, stores declensions and the imperfect and pluperfect in her mind at odd angles and softens the shape of it with the lilting sounds of her spanish maid, prays for patience when her mother takes her to dancing lessons, introduces her to nice young men at her cocktail parties ( _oh, deus, dieu, dios_ )

 

latin burns its way into the way she sees everything around her and with all the languages she has crammed in her mouth she can not find the right word for the sharp feeling in her stomach when the girl with a smile like poison slaps her hand away in the dark of a movie theater, curls her fingers around her wrist and hisses in her ear _i know what you are i know you now freak_ (that night she remembers _doleo, ardeo, quasso_ )

 

her mother's lips move together tighter and tighter as the years go by and there is no husband for the girl with too many words ( _men don't like women who talk back, you know that millicent_ )

 

when her father dies, she is the one who goes into his old library, sits on the floor, crying as she reads through his letters to some man in germany ( _oh, mien liebling_ he writes and it's a betrayal it's a sin but he was like her oh god oh god she feels like her heart is breaking inside her for her father who just couldn't leave behind what his family wanted and her mother who never even knew she could want more)

 

she meets susan and she feels the breath leave her all at once and she hates herself (she can't be the one who slips her hand under the skirt of the girl with a smile like glass it's wrong it's wrong susan doesn't even know there are people like her in the world) but she can't let susan be the one she writes letters too for her daughter to find the dusty morning after she dies, she has to tell her, she has to tell her ( _te amo, je t'aime, te quiero_ ) but then susan has timothy and millie has timbuktu and beijing and all the places she promised herself ( _je verrais le monde papa, je verrais le monde, oh papa, je suis desolée_ ) and susan is gone and the money is gone and she feels her heart being scooped out of her as she serves coffee to men with leering eyes and shitty tips.

 

one of them runs a hand down her waist ( _give us a smile, luv_ ) and she smiles, feels the words beat against the back of her teeth trying to get out ( _conard, hijo de puta, fucker_ ) and he gives her an extra shilling and she spends it on ice cream so sweet and cold it makes her mouth ache.

 

and then susan is back (same glass smile, two new children) and she cries herself to sleep the first night over her stupid, silly self.  she pulls out the postcards she never sent (they are addressed to _mien liebling, mein alles_  and she burns them in her fireplace )

 

she runs a hand through lucy's hair as she lies with her in her bed (too big for one always too big for one) and whispers the best comfort she knows ( _je te protège, je te promis_ ) and lets lucy sleep under covers that make her fragile little body seem smaller somehow (oh and lucy is so sweet, so kind, her smile all shattered, like the edges of it might hurt her if she smiles too big and millie feels like her chest is on fire she just wants to make it better and she never will be able too, lucy will have harry's hands burned on her forever, she will have her father's hands burned on her forever and scars heal but millie could kill them both for giving her any to begin with)

 

millie's thirty five now (the same age her mother was when she started speaking french to her over their afternoon tea) and she feels old and tired and somehow full for the first time in years.  she's scared now, and millie hasn't been scared in a long time, not since susan brushed a hand against hers as she translated german in a hut that smelled of cigarette smoke and typewriter ink.  

 

and then susan is gone again, off with timothy in bombay (write me letters, darling, write me all about india, is it the same as 1947, when everything was on fire and people would spit at you on the streets and the whole country tasted like a fight about to happen? oh, i wanted you to see it on independence day, darling, it was like a world come alive and my mother would have rolled over in her grave to see the way they were dancing on the streets, and you would have smiled my favorite smile of yours, _mien liebling_ , the one that lights up your whole face, oh god, _amabam, amo, amabo_ )

 

alice has a smile like glass too, and long, lithe fingers that trace their way into millie's brain, and the first time they kiss, alice tastes like whiskey and new beginnings and alice teaches her greek, alice's greek, numbers and statistics and millie's favorite is delta ( _change, millie, it means change_ ) and she brands it into her skin, let's it take her over and alice kisses her like she's a calculation, like she can figure out the precise way to make millie come until she's nothing more than ragged breaths and muttered pleas.

 

millie writes letters in french to thèrese, in lyon, to danika in riga, to mei-xing in shanghai and to susan in bombay and she blesses them each with perfume and her best wishes for the women she’s loved.  alice does not mind the letters, just as she does not mind the way alice twists where her wedding ring would be if she had married john richards.  millie is tired of love affairs and passionate escapes and she is happy to love alice, who gets up every morning at the same time, to make her tea ( _earl grey is the only suitable tea to have in the morning there’s absolutely no substance to chai, millie_ )

 

their love is easy and their love is kind and millie smiles at lucy and ben’s wedding and dances with alice in a way that is not entirely proper, and she can see ben’s mother watching them with a frown on her face.  millie’s mouth tastes sour (i know what you are, i know you now freak), but then lucy is there and all three of them are dancing.  jean watches them from the sidelines, next to a woman with a wide smile, who holds her hand under the table, and millie reads susan’s letter two weeks later (timothy and i wish lucy the best of luck of course, imagine our little lucy all grown up now) and places it in her dresser and dances again with alice in their apartment, the sounds of music washing over their soft afternoon, her in stockings and alice in her bare feet and millie feels like everything is right ( _oh alice, amabam, amo, amabo_ )

  


 

**Author's Note:**

> translations
> 
> oh, maman, je voudrais étudier, c'est jusque des nouvelles:oh, mother, i would like to study, it’s just the news
> 
> oh, ma chèrie, je t'aime, je t'adore, je t'embrasse, ici et ici, à la bouche et entre votre cuisses: oh, my dear, i like you, i love you, i kiss you, here and here, on the mouth and between your thighs
> 
> je voudrait voir le monde:i would like to see the world
> 
> tu verras le monde, ma petite: you will see the world, my dear (literally: my little)
> 
> oh,deus, deui, dios: god, god, god (in latin, french and spanish, respectively)
> 
> doleo, ardeo, quasso: i regret, i burn, i shatter
> 
> mien liebling:my darling
> 
> te amo, je t'aime, te quiero:i love you (in italian, french and spanish respectively)
> 
> je verrais le monde papa, je verrais le monde, oh papa, je suis desolée: i saw the world papa, i saw the world, oh papa, i’m sorry
> 
> conard, hijo de puta: ass(french), son of a bitch (spanish)
> 
> mein alles: my everything
> 
> je te protège, je te promis: i’m protecting you, i promise
> 
> amabam, amo, amabo: i loved you, i love you, i will love you


End file.
